Kalavryta
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Kalavryta municipality Δήμος Καλαβρύτων |
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| Basic data | |||
| State : |
 Greece
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| Region : | West Greece | ||
| Regional District : | Achaia | ||
| Geographic coordinates : | 38 ° 2 ' N , 22 ° 7' E | ||
| Area : | 1,065.5 km² | ||
| Residents : | 11,045 (2011) | ||
| Population density : | 10.4 inhabitants / km² | ||
| Seat: | Kalavryta | ||
| LAU-1 code no .: | 3705 | ||
| Districts : | 4 municipal districts | ||
| Local self-government : | 67 local communities | ||
| Website: | www.kalavrita.gr | ||
| Location in the region of Western Greece | |||
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Kalavryta ( Greek Καλάβρυτα ( n. Pl. ), Also Kalavrita, pronunciation : [ kaˈlavrita ]) is a small town with around 2000 inhabitants in the Achaia prefecture in the north of the Peloponnese peninsula . At the same time, Kalavryta is a municipality in the region of western Greece , which grew to around 11,000 inhabitants through incorporations, especially in 1997 and 2010. It is congruent with the province of Kalavryta, which existed from 1833 to 1997.
Kalavryta became famous as the legendary place at the beginning of the Greek Revolution and due to a massacre by the German Wehrmacht on December 13, 1943.
geography
The place is located in the fertile high valley of the Vouraikos river, which drains into the Gulf of Corinth, on the southern slope at an altitude of about 740 m, flanked to the west by the Erymanthos massif , 2221 m. To the east, the Aroania massif , 2338 m, dominates, close by .
In this mountainous landscape there is abundant rainfall between December and April. The river therefore carries water all year round, although this landscape, like almost all of the Peloponnese, is characterized by karst phenomena and very little rain in summers.
In terms of climate, mountain location and transport links, Kalavryta, like most of the inner Peloponnese, is one of the cities and villages characterized by structural weaknesses and rural exodus. Therefore tourism, today also agro-tourism, was promoted in the region.
traffic
The most important road connection to Diakopto on the north coast (approx. 40 km) belongs to the category of curvy "country roads of local importance" even after the expansion measures carried out in 2005. The other connections to the north-west ( Patras , 75 km) and south-east ( Tripoli , 90 km) also remain winding routes through the mountainous landscape. The Diakopto – Kalavryta railway , a narrow-gauge and rack- and- pinion railway built in 1885 with a gauge of 750 mm, is important for tourist traffic and is secured by the procurement of new traction vehicles.
The place can be reached from Athens by road or rail. Since the opening of the rail link from Athens Airport to Corinth in 2005 with a direct connection to the meter-gauge narrow-gauge Korinth-Diakopto-Patras railway, Kalavryta can be reached faster by rail than by road.
tourism
The place is an ensemble of houses and streets with a tree-lined platia, several hotels, a museum and a national memorial. The main economic source of income is tourism within Greece. Hikes are possible through the Vouraikos high valley and through the gorge along the railway line.
Kalavryta is also on the E4 European long-distance hiking trail .
View of Kalavryta, Upper Town
Panorama of Kalavryta with river plain and Erymanthos mountains
Memorial to the massacre of December 13, 1943
Vouraikos gorge. Trees near the water, otherwise maquis vegetation
Vouraikos Gorge, upwards. Year-round water. Route of the rack railway
Peloponnese n ==> s, Kalavryta between high valley and gorge. WorldWind (20 km)
Kalavryta train station
history
The place Kalavryta is particularly known for two historical events.
Agia Lavra Monastery
On March 25, 1821 , the Metropolitan (Bishop) Germanos of Patras blessed the flag of the liberation fighters in the nearby monastery of Agia Lavra . Since then, the monastery has been a national shrine and March 25 is now a national holiday.
Kalavryta massacre
During the German occupation of Greece in World War II, partisans of the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) arrested around 80 German soldiers in mid-October 1943. The partisans had a strong position in the Kalavryta area, although the predominantly conservative population was considered aloof from them. It can not be determined from the numerous documents of the Wehrmacht that the partisans' demand to exchange the captured soldiers for Greek hostages in German hands was seriously considered. At the end of November, the order for the “Operation Kalavrita” (annihilation of the “gangs” - meaning partisans - and a reprisal) had already been issued. The following increased troop movements into the area of Kalavryta could not have escaped the partisans. On December 7th, about two months after their capture, the German soldiers were killed and found by the occupiers on December 8th.
Thereupon the order was issued for the "sharpest form of expiatory measures". The 117th Jäger Division , under the command of Major General Karl von Le Suire , began the following day, December 9, with the destruction of Kalavryta and 25 villages. The above-mentioned national shrine of Agía Lávra Monastery was completely destroyed (which increased the indignation of the Greeks and continues to have an impact today). On December 13th, all villagers were ordered to go to school; Women and children locked up there. The men between the ages of 15 and 65 were taken above the village and executed there with machine gun fire. 13 men survived the massacre because the Germans thought they were dead. The place was reduced to rubble.
Quotes from an article by Rondholz published in 1997:
“Kampfgruppenführer Ebersberger reported 674 people shot. In the final report to the general command of the LXVIII. Army Corps speaks of 695 Greeks shot dead in the course of the entire Kalavryta operation. [...] the Greeks, for their part, continue to assume a significantly higher number of deaths "
The Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Rallis , who collaborated with the Wehrmacht, wrote in a submissive letter to the Greek military commander , General Wilhelm Speidel , six days after the massacre:
“Yesterday I received news that almost all of the male population in Kalavryta city had been killed in mass executions […]. If my information is correct, the mass execution victims amounted to more than 650. "
Commemoration
In 1956, 33 Greek war orphans from Kalavryta visited Chancellor Adenauer in Palais Schaumburg. As a compensatory measure, they received vocational training in Germany. A memorial was erected above the town. The names of all the murdered are cast into high concrete walls and a five-meter-high white cross was erected, which can be seen from every position in the valley and town. A grieving mother stands as a concrete sculpture in the middle of the complex. The area shows the inscriptions “OXI ΠIA ΠOΛEMOI” (Never again war) and “ΕΙΡΗΝΗ” (Peace) in large white stone letters.
Since the massacre, the pointers on the clock face of the church tower have stopped at 1:34 p.m. The “House of Our Heroes” museum is now located in the rooms of the old primary school. Every year on December 13th, the people of Kalavrytas gather below the cross. The 477 victims are remembered by reading out their names.
On April 4, 2000, the German President Johannes Rau visited Kalavryta and laid a wreath at the memorial.
Investigations
The lawyer Norman Paech wrote in 2000:
- “Despite hundreds of preliminary investigations into war crimes in Greece, only one main trial was opened before the Augsburg Regional Court . It was about the shooting of six civilians in Crete. The court accepted the position of the Wehrmacht, (...), so the regional court qualified these executions as 'self-defense under international law' and acquitted the accused captain ... All federal governments, including the current one, have so far refused to negotiate with the Greek government unresolved issue of compensation for the victims of the massacres at the time. "
In Greece, claims by the victims' relatives for redress have been dismissed by courts with reference to state immunity - no country can be sued in a court of any other state. On February 15, 2007, the European Court of Justice (EUGH) in Luxembourg also dismissed claims for damages against Germany because of the massacre. The plaintiffs had tried to legally base their claims on an EU-internal convention on jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments from 1968; In its judgment, however, the ECJ saw this as not applicable to this case. In the similar case of the Distomo massacre , the International Court of Justice ruled in 2012 in a landmark ruling that private individuals are not allowed to sue a state because of the principle of par in parem non habet imperium (state immunity).
Personalities
- Thrasivoulos Zaimis (* 1822, Kalavryta; † 1880). Greek politician and Prime Minister of Greece (1869 to 1870 and 1871 to 1872).
See also
literature
in order of appearance
- Eberhard Rondholz : "The toughest measures against the gangs are necessary ..." - Fight against partisans and war crimes in Greece. Aspects of the German occupation policy 1941–1944 . In: Ahlrich Meyer (ed.): Repression and war crimes. The fight against resistance and partisan movements against the German occupation in Western and Southern Europe . Verlag der Buchladen Schwarze Risse, Rote Strasse, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-924737-41-X . Pp. 130-170.
- Walter Manoschek : Kraljevo - Kragujevac - Kalavryta. The massacres of the 717th Infantry Division and 117th Jäger Division in the Balkans . In: Loukia Droulia, Hagen Fleischer : From Lidice to Kalavryta. Resistance and Terror of Occupation. Studies on reprisals in World War II . Metropol, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-932482-10-7 . Pp. 93-104.
- Frank Hermann Meyer: From Vienna to Kalavryta. The bloody trail of the 117th Jäger Division through Serbia and Greece . Bibliopolis, Mannheim / Möhnesee 2002, ISBN 3-933925-22-3 .
- Eberhard Rondholz: Kalavryta 1943 . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.): Places of horror. Crimes in World War II . Primus, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-89678-232-0 , pp. 60-70.
Web links
- Cogwheel railway accompanying trail and landscape in the Vouraikos Gorge
- National shrine Monastery of Agía Lávra, 5 km from Kalavryta
- Kalavrita - city of widows (article by Roland Kirbach in the period 50/1990)
- Press release at the end of the European Youth Seminar (Against Violence and Racism), Kalavryta, 8. – 14. December 2003
- "German President visits Kalavryta", ANA, (April 1, 2000) (Athens News Agency, in English)
- Kalavryta - Land of Martyrs and Heroes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Results of the 2011 census at the National Statistical Service of Greece (ΕΛ.ΣΤΑΤ) ( Memento from June 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (Excel document, 2.6 MB)
- ↑ Kaspar Dreidoppel: The Greek Demon: Resistance and Civil War in Occupied Greece 1941-1944 , (Balkanological Publications of the Eastern European Institute at the Free University Berlin 46), Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-447-05929-9 , p. 344
- ↑ see #Literature . He is also based on scientific research in Greece
- ↑ Welt im Bild 196/1956 (video) Federal Archives. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
- ↑ a b c Hamburger Abendblatt of March 22, 2015: The day when the church tower clock stopped (p. 5)
- ↑ Address by Federal President Rau at http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Johannes-Rau/Reden/2000/04/20000404_Rede.html (accessed on July 26, 2013)
- ↑ beck-online
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 16, 2007, p. 1.
- ↑ Tagesspiegel from November 19, 2008.